‘Dumped’ man books cinemas to ease seven-year itch

BEIJING, China – A jilted Chinese man spent $40,000 to book four entire IMAX cinemas for first-day showings of the latest "Transformers" movie on Friday to prove his ex-girlfriend was wrong when she dumped him for being poor seven years ago, he said.

"Hu Xiaoyun: I was so poor when we were in our fourth year at college in 2007 that I could not afford just two film tickets," the man said in a posting on microblogging Sina Weibo website. "You said when you left for Beijing that I will always be that way. I have been working hard for the past seven years because of that sentence and today I spent half my monthly income to book all the seats in Beijing's IMAX cinemas,” he said.

“I just want to say maybe your choice back then was wrong." As evidence he posted the contract with a booking agency and three receipts totaling 250,000 yuan ($40,000). The man has only been identified in Chinese media reports by his surname Wang. Using the online handle Chicken Run 1234 and a profile image as a Na'vi warrior from the 2009 Hollywood blockbuster Avatar, he called on Internet users to spread the message until she sees it and promised to reward re-posters with free tickets.

They quickly ran out, and his message had been reposted more than 110,000 times by Friday. Previous "Transformers" movies were box-office hits in China and midnight showings of the fourth instalment "Age of Extinction" took 40 million yuan in the early hours of Friday, a new national record, according to Chinese media reports. The man said separately that his old flame had contacted him by phone.

Both had put the feud behind them, he indicated, but there was no hope of rekindling their relationship. "I promised her when we first met that if she left one day, I would make the whole world know I was looking for her," he said.